There might be Cake

I'm sitting in a coffee shop in Crested Butte, CO. It's dark outside and I can just make out the snowstorm that's been dumping all day. I just got a text message from someone back in California: "All the dishes rattle in the cupboard when the elephants arrive." It made me smile and I'll tell you why.

I woke up one late-summer morning in the loft of a Dome. It was not the usual loft of the usual Dome. I had moved into this small space temporarily while folks in my community shuffled living spaces. It was a different bed, too, so the already disorienting experience of coming to was all the more odd.
Light fought its way from the windows downstairs up into the rounded "corner" (Domes have no corners, hence the quotations) where my head lay pressed into an orange pillow. As my consciousness swam into its recognizable pattern, a small noise croaked from beneath the sheets. It was my cell phone, mindlessly shoved out of sight after canceling the snooze alarm. This buzzing chirp was not the sound of the gizmo looking out for my best interests, despite my discouragement. Rather, it was the signal of a fresh text message, hot off the presses.
A bit of rummaging uncovered the phone and I flipped it open (not the easiest maneuver with my arm asleep). Pins and needles creeping down my fingers, I navigated the tiny menus and read the message.
Good morning this morning :)
The cheerfulness was almost offensive. I was, at the time, in the unfortunate position of being in love with someone I'd just met and I'd been trying to romantically entangle myself with this person for weeks. So far she had been maddeningly evasive. Dinner dates were delayed at the last minute and eventually changed to lunch dates. Calls were returned days later, but with just enough charm to keep me hooked. She was in bed by ten, so any spontaneous late-night antics were out of the question. The morning time, it seemed, was the right time.
I was peeved at the incredulity of the gesture. Apparently, I fit into her schedule the way laundry fit into mine: Put off for days as a low priority until waking up to realize that there are no responsibilities or diversions left to delay the inevitable. And of course I have a good attitude about it once I get going, but how do you think the last pair of boxers feels to be strung along for the ride? Hm? Well anyway, it's water under the bridge now. It turns out her life was legitimately cluttered and I was being selfish and radi radi ra.
But at the time, as you may have gleaned, I was miffed. My reply was something I hoped would be received with equal incredulity. Some bit of nonsense—a non-response, to baffle her and perhaps elicit an articulated acknowledgment of her flakiness in the face of my tireless advances. None of this "good morning" crap. At the same time, I was totally smitten. I wasn't about to undo all my hard work, so I chose a bit of nonsense that, if looked at later on, would carry a different message. Thus:
All the dishes rattle in the cupboard when the elephants arrive.
They're lyrics from a song that I had been practicing, lovestruck, for days. Sitting on the floor with my guitar, pouring my heart out to my roommates, the blank wall, the warm night air, and then finally to her. In the coming weeks, we would play it together in her living room, listen to it with her friends, and then by ourselves under cold, glittering stars.
And just now, sitting in an unfamiliar place, entrenched in snow and loneliness, and trying to think of something interesting to write, I received a text message. All the dishes rattle in the cupboard when the elephants arrive. That bright summer morning, hungover from heartache, I sent her a message:
Don't you realize how fucking in love with you I am?!
And now, months and miles from that moment, she replies:
Yes.